1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for processing feedstock.
2. Description of the Background Art
Conventional devices are used for the crushing of feedstock and/or with feedstock composed of various components, which may also be in compounds, for the separation of the components from one another, to be recovered as reusable materials for new production processes. An example of the feedstock in question is the collection of reusable materials obtained from the disposal of household waste, whereby there are large amounts of plastics mixed with sheet metal. Similarly, there is a device according to the present invention for the processing of electrical and electronic scrap, such as vacuum cleaners, telephone sets, computers, kitchen utensils, etc., whose constituent components are plastic and metal. Other applications consist of the processing of cable scrap made of plastic-coated copper or aluminum wires or in the reprocessing of old tires that are made of rubber, steel and fabric or in the processing of recycled wood, which is often contaminated with impurities, for example, with hardware.
A basic objective in processing feedstock is to separate the fundamental components existing in the feedstock in order to carry out the subsequent processing steps. In most cases, this also involves a crushing of at least one of the components of the feedstock. Independently, a device according to the invention may also be used to crush the feedstock exclusively, for example that exists in a pure or unmixed form.
The principal construction design of a generic device envisages a rotor-stator system. This rotor is fitted with processing tools around its circumference that are directed in a line of rotation to the stationary stator tools and interacts with them. Depending on the type of processing tools, the feedstock is thus subjected to a cutting, shearing, deformation, beating, chopping, or breaking process.
Depending upon the mechanical properties of the feedstock, particularly its hardness, tensile strength and silicate percentage, this means that during the processing step the processing tools are subjected to relatively strong wear, which leads to an increasing degree to a deterioration of the processing results and to an increasing degree of power consumption. The reason for this is the enlargement of a working clearance between the processing tools caused by deterioration which is countered from time to time by a radial resetting to restore the stator tools to the conventional clearance between rotor tools and stator tools. However, this is only possible to a certain extent, so that, at regular time intervals, the processing tools must be changed, for example, by having the effective edges reground or replaced.
Since both the resetting as well as the change of the processing tools considerably disturbs the operating procedure and the latter actually requires a shutdown, an effort is always being made to find an economical procedure to make the time required for resetting or changing tools as short as possible.
A granulator is known from the German patent DE 20 2005 013 719 U1 that has a rotor fitted with cutting tools to which a stationary counter blade is attached by a clamp to the stator side of the housing. A radial resetting of the counter blade due to deterioration takes place after the clamp is lifted and the radial set screws have been actuated. Since the counter blades extend along the entire length of the stator and thus often consist of several rows of single blades, aligning all the counter blades by actuating the individual clamping and set screws involves a great amount of time and effort. This leads to an undesirably long operating interruption, which adds up over time to a serious economic disadvantage.
In addition, a pair of guillotine shears is known from the German patent DE 200 09 718 U1, which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 6,983,904, and which has a pivotably mounted and driven rotor, on whose surface area a plurality of chipper knives are arranged. Counter blades in knife holders are fitted on the stator side, which are positioned around the swivel axes that are axially parallel to the rotary axis. Two diametrically opposed counter blades are attached to one of the knife holders, which may be moved by swiveling the knife holder into the cutting position with its interchangeable head and fastened. In this manner, a downtime determined by knife change is limited only to the duration of the swiveling procedure of the knife holder. By contrast, the replacement of the used counter knife can take place during the crushing operation. In addition, German patent DE 200 09 718U1 discloses a device for the setting of the cutting clearance in which the width of the cutting clearance is set by a small swiveling movement of the knife holder. However, this type of cutting clearance setting means that the spatial position of the counter blade not only changes in the radial direction, but also in the vertical direction, deviating overall from an optimal cutting geometry.